When Roy discovers the bag of cottonmouth snakes that Mullet Fingers is keeping in chapter five, readers are as confused as Roy is. This is the first time Roy meets Mullet Fingers, but Roy doesn't get to see him. The strange boy disguises his voice and plops a hood over Roy's head, then ties him to a tree. When he frees him, he requires Roy to count to fifty before turning around, and by that time the mysterious boy has disappeared.
Mullet Fingers's actions are perplexing. On one hand, he seems nefarious. He won't let Roy see him, he captures Roy for a few minutes, and he keeps poisonous snakes. On the other hand, he could have allowed Roy to be bitten, but he protects him from the snakes. He also painted the snakes' tails with glitter paint, and he doesn't actually harm Roy.
At this point, readers are probably speculating that the boy intends to harm someone with the snakes, but they don't know who. If readers have connected the running boy with the mischief at the construction site, readers may speculate that the snakes will be released on the property to scare away and possibly harm the workers.
As it turns out, however, Mullet Fingers takes care to use the snakes only to scare off the guard dogs. He has anticipated that the company will eventually bring in dogs to prevent his tampering with the site. He has painted the snakes' tails to make them more noticeable to people (and perhaps so he can easily catch them again), and before releasing them on the property, he tapes their mouths shut so they cannot harm people or dogs. They will make the dogs freak out, though, and the dog owner will not risk losing an expensive animal to snakebite.
The way Mullet Fingers uses the snakes demonstrates that he's ingenious, a skillful reptile wrangler, and not really a "bad kid."
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